LinoNYC said:
That presumes advertising could fool people's ears. You are probably too young to remember the early 70's when the transistion of music to FM really took hold. The AM stations had the money, promotions and personalities but even to us kids FM sounded better ((I'am 51 btw).
I remember the transition well. The death of music on AM was a very complex phenomenon, with a lot of things coming into play:
--- better sound on FM
--- availability of musical formats on FM that weren't available on AM
--- better receiving equipment
--- simulcasting of MTV with FM stations
--- death of influential AM station owners, or sale of assets by them
--- mainstreaming of "underground" artists and DJ's
Many other factors. The perception among kids in my home town was that FM was only for old fogie formats like easy listening. It didn't have the "coolness" factor. With only one or two stations receivable in the town, that perception was true in that locality.
Exactly in my city is was WSRS "Worcester's Stereo Radio Station" it played elevator music
A single new station - that played country unfortunately - changed the perception about FM overnight. It was suddenly "cool" to kids who liked country because the stations played something they wanted to hear. Us rock fans were left out, but soon discovered faint signals from a town 120 miles away, and the DX revolution was underway in our home town. Those who couldn't afford better tuners could hear rock music on FM over the cable - it had an annoying "buzz" but was listenable. There was an "underground" rock station that had the image of flying in the face of the establishment, and of playing music "forbidden" on AM. It was on the cable, hundreds of kids discovered something cool and new - something from the big city 300 miles away, something they wanted to hear in rock-starved country bumpkin Midland, TX. Every kid jury rigged the cable to their previously useless FM radio. Some of us discovered FM went 300 miles and we got stations that weren't on the cable - international rock, mellow soul, smooth jazz on a PBS station. Kraftwerk and other artists that weren't even on cable. Kids who were offspring of oil rich families were buying fabulous DX setups, antennas started sprouting all over neighborhoods.
It was ALL about the music - country fans had their FM station, rock fans could get stations on cable - 8 tracks and cassettes had to do in cars. Closer to Dallas, in Abilene, I've heard of cases where a kids would go park somewhere, jury rig an antenna, and kids would do their partying around a car listening to KZEW from Dallas. I'm not making this stuff up. Remember, no ipods at the time.
The creative new formats are long gone, KZEW, KNUS, the innovative shows on KERA - all gone. Perhaps outlived their usefulness. But it was a revolution in music, at least locally. Local AM stations didn't keep up with the changing musical trends, FM gladly stepped into the niche.
In my case it was WBCN 104.1 ( Boston Concert network) in Boston, one of the first "underground" stations in the country, I was 15 in 1968 and that was THE cool station to listen to, they played everything from Hendrix, Country Joe and The fish, Jethro Tull, BB King, Muddy Waters, Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, folk music and this was all in the same set sometimes, the commercials were read by the DJ's who were all very cool of course. It called itself the American revolution, this was totally unheard of, the jocks picked their own music with only a little input from the PD, this was great stuff compared to top 40 AM, all of a sudden AM was old fogie stuff. WBCN did not come in well here in Worcester MA at that time either so we would fool with the antennas on the console stereos to get it in, the AM stations boomed in here and WBCN faded in and out at 40 miles from Boston (kind of like HD does at 8 miles from the Empire state building), and was buzzy but we put up with it because it was new and exciting, it did not sound better than AM at that time unless you lived in Boston. This station was great until the late 70's when they were sold which precipitated a strike right around the same time as the movie FM was out which they ultimately lost as the station was never the same after that, they just gradually went downhill after that into blandness although it was still good for much of the early 80's. WBCN used to break all sorts of bands, a lot of the big Boston bands had their start on 'BCN they played local bands, had a local top ten every week, went out on the community, it was quite a station, there's really nothing left that I now of today that compares with those kind of stations.
The creative new formats are long gone, KZEW, KNUS, the innovative shows on KERA - all gone. Perhaps outlived their usefulness. But it was a revolution in music, at least locally. Local AM stations didn't keep up with the changing musical trends, FM gladly stepped into the niche.
This is just one story, of Midland, TX, and the transition. There are probably hundreds or thousands of stories of how people discovered FM, but the common threads are probably creative new music formats. Which is one reason why I say HD-2 is an opportunity for HD radio that the industry dare not squander on more of the same, or satellite and streaming really will swamp HD in the race for consumer spending.
